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Israel Is Not Facing a Dilemma over the West Bank

(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Dr. Max Singer - Israel does not now have a choice about giving the Palestinians land or creating a Palestinian state. While there are undoubtedly peace-seeking Palestinians, as a community, the Palestinians have not even begun to discuss the possibility of making a peace that accepts Israel and ends the Palestinian effort to gain all the land "from the river to the sea." Nor have they begun public discussion of the possibility of most of the "refugees" settling outside Israel. Without that discussion, there is no way the Palestinians can give up their determination to destroy Israel and make a genuine peace. The Palestinians see peace with Israel as defeat in their 100-year struggle. The choice they have made is to force Israel to "occupy" them, because they want to keep up the struggle to destroy Israel. This reality means that the question of what land we should give up is a question for the fairly distant future. We should do whatever we can to make the Palestinians and the Arab world more willing to give up their determination to destroy us. Being nicer to them might help, although that is not usually a very effective strategy in the Middle East. The U.S. could help by replacing false "even-handedness" with a truth-telling strategy that shows the Arab world that the U.S. will not help them destroy Israel. The writer, a founder of the Hudson Institute, is a senior fellow at the BESA Center.
2017-05-30 00:00:00
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